By Staff Writer Taleena Nadkarni

Last month, kindergartners at Harley Avenue Primary School in New York became victims of a new, destructive era of education.

In a poorly crafted letter to parents, Harley administrators and teachers announced the cancelation of the year-end kindergarten show. According to a Washington Post report, they defended their decision by maintaining that developing college and career readiness is more important for the five-year-olds. The school is currently facing a barrage of complaints from the public, but it has not yet succumbed to the pressure and altered its decision.

But perhaps it should. Unfortunately, many schools across the U.S. are pushing more standardization. Harley’s cancellation is a clear representation of how American education has started to place less of an emphasis on creativity. This practice denies students vital self-expression and opportunities to increase understanding.

Childhood experiences such as participating in a kindergarten show are vital to developing a cultured generation. The arts are an outlet for student expression inside and outside the classroom, which is why art programs must never be overlooked. The fostered ability to interpret the human condition is vital to creating socially-conscious future members of society.

The arts also prepare students to delve deeper into their classroom learning experiences. If a child participates in a school musical or plays an instrument, he or she will retain patterns of creativity and apply them in the classroom. Learning a creative approach to anything makes a student more adept at understanding everything. Ultimately, the arts allow students to experience a feeling or concept rather than simply sit in a chair and be lectured at.

In terms of academic performance, America is not considered up to par in comparison with the rest of the world, a fact that has caused our nation to panic in regards to test scores and grades.

For this reason, we have quickly turned to standardization and career preparation. However, this preparation should never occur at the expense of a child’s expression through creative means.

In the case of Harley Avenue Primary School, kindergartners were robbed of a fundamental childhood learning experience, an experience capable of cultivating more experienced and motivated young minds.

If schools continue this trend of cutting art programs to invest more time in testing, they will essentially become counterproductive. Students, regardless of their age, require an outlet for expression, in order to thrive in the classroom. Educators who lack the vision to realize that their students are not merely products of their test scores do not deserve to be such influential figures in a child’s life.

Using Harley Avenue Primary School’s poor judgment as a warning, we must strive to never trade a child’s need for creativity for educational conformity.